


outside, it's raining

by swapcats



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon-Compliant, Character Study, F/F, they're in love and it's awful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-12
Updated: 2016-02-12
Packaged: 2018-05-19 23:22:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5984086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swapcats/pseuds/swapcats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You cannot kill her and she cannot kill you; on the ground, that means something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	outside, it's raining

     When you were young, you were taught that love and trust were one in the same. You were never meant to divide them, to see distinctions between the two; they blended together immutable, unbreakable.

    But a lot of things have been shattered, on the ground.

*

    You do not think of her for three months.

    You wander the forests her clan takes its name from, and you do not think of her. Mount Weather reveals itself in your dreams and when you blink, and you gather up the pieces and push them down, down, until anything that sounds like _betrayal_ is drowned out by the memory of what you did. You did what you had to, and so did she (—but you don’t think of her).

    When your hunt comes to its conclusion and your prey is sprawled on its beaten, bloody back, you push a blade between its ribs and crack them open, and make your first fumbled attempts at skinning your prize. No matter how fitting it may be, you do your best not to think of her.

    Your barely skinned beasts lead you to Niylah, and Niylah leads you to some hungry, aching part of yourself. She is sweet and she is smart and she is strong, and she would be all those things and more for you, but you don’t want to hear her words. You want to steal them straight from her, all teeth and tongue, heartbeat thundering over every thought you don’t have.

    You think of how you’re not thinking about Lexa: you’re not focused on the way she kissed you, on how much it meant for her to trust you. You remind yourself of where you are, and what’s happened, and you know that you could never twist your fingers in her hair, or feel her composure slip away at your fingertips.

     (When darkness envelops you, bag over your head, you think that you could’ve dealt with betrayal, if there was nothing more to it than that. You could’ve taken a knife to your back, metaphorical or otherwise. The thing that really stings is that it was _her_ , and she did this knowing what it would do to _you_.)

*

    Polis is not untouched by war, if such a place has ever existed, but it is no battlefield. There are markets and homes here, not trenches and encampments, and you see it all from her tower, a million miles up. The last time you were this far from the ground, you were hurtling towards it. Now, when you look over the edge, there is no fear, no vertigo. Your stomach does not even twist.

    You spat in her face. _You spat in her face_. In all the time you spent not thinking about ever seeing her again, you never expected to do yourself the disservice of losing your composure. But that was all a fantasy: in the moment, too much rushed over you to do anything but kick and scream and swear. 

    Wanheda. Wanheda. If she is to play her part of _Commander_ to the bone, then you will force yourself into your semi-mythical role and match her power. Overrule it.

    You take Roan’s knife, and twist it between your hands. It would be easy. Too easy. Either she believes there is something salvageable here, or she underestimates you; you will not bow, you will not break, and you will not bend.  
*

    Something trickles back into you. It is not hope, it is not trust. Maybe it is not anything beyond the desire to feel those things once more.

    Whatever it is: your blade trembles at her throat, and for all the power of Wanheda, she will not take your head.

    You cannot kill her and she cannot kill you; on the ground, that means something.

*

     After your umpteenth sleepless night, you understand what you’ve been doing wrong.

    You’ve been trying to create a dichotomy between Lexa and the Commander, tried to break them apart and put them into neat, clean-cut categories. 

     _The Commander_ stands before her council without fear in her eyes, without a shadow of doubt draped across her authority. _The Commander_ has you bow at her feet, and _the Commander_ claims your power for her own. _The Commander_ leads armies to war and kicks the defiant off sky-scraper balconies.

     _Lexa_ lets you hold a blade to her throat. _Lexa_ searches you with her eyes and apologises quietly, sincerely. _Lexa_ kneels before you and offers all she has, all she is, and _Lexa_ takes your hand. She is soft, too soft, and it is only for you.

    But in the end, there is no difference. Lexa is the Commander, and the Commander is Lexa; Lexa can only do what she does because she is the Commander, and the Commander has only become all she is because she is Lexa.

    They are not two different people. Lexa bares herself to you not because this is some hidden part of herself, something contrary to the Commander the twelve – thirteen – clans look to, but because she has taken a calculated risk. She has worked out exactly how much she can afford to give you, and offered it tenfold.

    You could put an end to this all. Her, the coalition, and all that has made Polis great. It would take a word, an action, a flick of a blade, but here is the thing:

    Her word means something. Her word means everything. You wish to god it didn’t, because it makes you feel like there is a vice around your ribs with each breath you take, and everything you want gone, gone, _gone_ thrums under your skin, and on the tip of your tongue.

    She betrayed you once, and you can’t even think yourself a fool for believing she’ll never do it again.

*

    It takes Polis, a coup twelve ambassadors strong, and a fight to the death to make you realise that this isn’t about you.

    None of this has been about you.

    Lexa has said it time and time before, but it is not until you meet the Nightbloods, until you see the way they train, that you truly understand what she means by being born for this. She has lived her life surrounded by strife and bloodshed, by expectations and hard decisions. There are two maps in her mind, one of her land and one of her people’s needs, and they do not always match up. 

    She has carried this weight on her shoulders her entire life. She has been here for _years_ , making the decisions no one else would or could, and betraying you was not even the hardest thing she has ever had to do. She has lived her life expecting death to be a breath away, thinking her body as disposable as her spirit is recyclable. 

    And now—

    Now you don’t want her to die. 

    You find yourself desperate, dealing with the man who marched you across open fields and held your head under water. The man whose mother made Lexa believe that the best parts of her were a weakness. Something to be stricken from her.

    You march into her tent. No soldiers, no weapons. Only a gut feeling that’s soured to back you up, and the slow, sinking realisation that you’ve known what this is all along. It’s just taken you this long to understand it.

    Trust is love put into action. That’s all this is.

    It terrifies you, and it _should._

*  
    She comes to you, that night. The battle is over and you’ve yet to stop trembling. You can still taste the way it felt to swallow the lump her victory lodged in your throat; it hits you, all at once, that her talk of death was not all for nothing. Roan could’ve slaughtered her, and it isn’t until the relief of her winning causes a shaky short of adrenaline to hurtle through you that you understand how devastated you would’ve been by her death.

    You thought not of what it would mean for the thirteen clans, for your people, but for _you_.

    You feel her words more than you hear them, and you invite her in. You both have cuts on your palms, but her wound is the one you tend to.

     When Lexa smiles at you, it almost takes too long to look away. You understand where this could go, where you want it to go, just as clearly as you understand that trust is not a matter of all or nothing. It is a growing, blossoming thing. It is gnawing, at times. 

    It makes you feel as though you have forgotten yourself, until she says goodnight, wanting you, loving you, _respecting_ you, and you realise there are a hundred new feelings, words, experiences, to replace every old, worn part you discard.

    She looks back at you, and after all the nights you spent in space, dreaming of your ancestors’ home and the ground below, you see that her eyes are the colour of dirt; and you, the girl from the stars, cannot look away, even with a door between you.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this fic, you may enjoy my trilogy, Dragonoak. It's a high-fantasy, low-magic series about a necromancer who runs away with a passing knight, and to be blunt abound it: it's full of incredibly gay ladies. The first book, [The Complete History of Kastelir](http://www.amazon.com/Dragonoak-Complete-Kastelir-Sam-Farren-ebook/dp/B00WOXQVM2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1455303841&sr=8-1&keywords=dragonoak), is currently free on Amazon. Thanks for reading!


End file.
